


Right Thing

by chewysun



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 02:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12201666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysun/pseuds/chewysun
Summary: Lisa hopes she’s doing the Right Thing. Hopes that she’s not irreparably screwing with everything she’s worked so hard for; that she’s not making the first wrong decision in a long succession of wrong decisions. But mostly, Lisa hopes. Hopes that letting this man she barely knows into their lives isn’t that first wrong decision, but she can’t do nothing. Can’t leave him out on her front porch, broken past the point of normalcy and half-formed arguments like not right and it’s a mistake. Not when he looks like this.





	Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Was recently cleaning out my computer docs and stumbled across a treasure trove of mostly unfinished fics that I hope to dust off and power through so that I can post them. Amongst those fics was this finished drabble-ish thing, that was originally posted about a million years ago on LJ. It's a kind of re-write of the ending of the series, because I don't think I really accepted the end of the original five season-arc when I wrote this lol.
> 
> Anyhow, I hope you enjoy!

Lisa hopes she’s doing the Right Thing. Hopes that she’s not irreparably screwing with everything she’s worked so hard for; that she’s not making the first wrong decision in a long succession of wrong decisions. But mostly, Lisa _hopes_. Hopes that letting this man she barely knows into their lives isn’t that first wrong decision, but she can’t do _nothing_. Can’t leave him out on her front porch, broken past the point of normalcy and half-formed arguments like _not right_ and _it’s a mistake_. Not when he looks like this.

Driving Ben to school the next day, she leaves him with instructions and a duffle to take to his Aunt Emma’s house, breathing I Love You into the kiss she marks on his forehead. Ben’s grin says I Love You Too before he goes to break more hearts in girls who don’t know any better.

* * *

 Dean is quiet and dressed, sitting on the couch when she gets back. He’s stiff with his hands twisted in his lap, staring into space that must have a shape or a memory in his eyes because he’s not staring into _space -_ he’s looking into something Lisa doesn’t have a name for, something she might not ever see. She walks quietly to the fridge, pulling two beers out before settling down beside Dean, slow and steady in her movements to keep him from feeling jittery. Wordlessly she hands him his beer, flicking the television on so calmly, as if it’s absurdly everyday for her to be trying to comfort a man who hunts nightmares. She watches him from the corner of her eye, acutely feeling inadequacy down to its very roots. When he switches his beer to his left hand, she barely thinks before her hand grasps his, slipping them together in the press of _I’m here, I’ve got you_.

His hand is surface-cold, leftover condensation licking her palm, but she hopes she pushes something he can feel into her grip; something firm. Strong. She wants to be strong for him, because… because. Because she wants to. And because he isn’t saying no. 

* * *

“I don’t think this is where you’re supposed to be,” she says to him one afternoon. It’s beautiful and warm outside, and Lisa watches the day sift lazily around them. Time pools at their feet and above their heads, heedless of single moments or sweeping realizations.

“I made a promise,” he replies. His eyes are closed, face tilted to the sun to seek warmth.

“To do what?” she prompts. She looks over at him, tracking the tiredness that leaks from the corner of his eyes to the swell of his cheek, down past the strong line of his jaw to the column of his neck, and she hopes that the passing of days to come will ease it back into something manageable and barely there.

“To do this. To be happy.” He laughs, a small, bitter thing that nips at her skin. “I don’t think I’m any good at it.”

She has to ask. “Any good at this,” she gestures at the yard, the house, “or being happy?” He doesn’t answer.

“They don’t have to mean the same thing, Dean. You deserve to be happy, in whatever way possible.” The day still moves around them, too slippery to be real, but too real to be lost, and Lisa can’t feel anything but glad about that.

* * *

Ben started summer camp last week, and it’s another day to be spent outside. They lie in the grass, cool in the shade of a tree, and blink in time to the fizzing sparks of sun through the leaves.

Lisa rolls her head to look at Dean, meeting his eyes when she finds him already looking at her. He smiles then, tentative and small and not-quite-right, but she knows it’ll fit soon. Someone will make it fit soon.

The sky melts into a myriad of blues, the sun sinking closer to dip behind the mountains when they get up and retreat into the house. They don’t say much, save for thank you’s and excuse me’s as they move around each other, one last beer to savour in the deepening dusk.

Four hours later, and he’s on the front porch again, lingering with the uncertainty of going against a promise, probably one of the only promises he ever believed in keeping. She pulls him, warm and patched up as best she could, into the circle of her arms, kisses _Take care of yourself_ into his cheek and rubs his back. He breathes something close to a _thank you_ into her hair, and she watches him drive away without a backward glance.

She hopes she did everything she could for him. She really hopes she did.

 

 

 


End file.
